Blake Hall

At that moment in my life, it's amazing to have this conversation because I was just so focused on what was right in front of me to keep my men alive. hopefully myself too. But that's maybe an introduction to first week in Mosul.

At that moment in my life, it's amazing to have this conversation because I was just so focused on what was right in front of me to keep my men alive. hopefully myself too. But that's maybe an introduction to first week in Mosul.

I think the thing you can't know is if you're going to be brave, everyone's scared when you're over in combat. You're not normal if you're not scared. But character is about pushing all that down and doing the right thing for the men that you lead when the chips are down. And honestly, every firefight is different.

I think the thing you can't know is if you're going to be brave, everyone's scared when you're over in combat. You're not normal if you're not scared. But character is about pushing all that down and doing the right thing for the men that you lead when the chips are down. And honestly, every firefight is different.

For me, just in terms of becoming a man and as a rite of passage, will I be able to do my job when it counts? And you just don't know that until you're shot at. And it changes over time.

For me, just in terms of becoming a man and as a rite of passage, will I be able to do my job when it counts? And you just don't know that until you're shot at. And it changes over time.

The military has done a lot of research now to show that over the course of your deployment at like month six or seven, you go into God phase that you've survived enough of combat that you actually will take extreme risk. And when we hit that time mark, when we were down in Baghdad, we got into firefights where other captains would come out with us and ride.

The military has done a lot of research now to show that over the course of your deployment at like month six or seven, you go into God phase that you've survived enough of combat that you actually will take extreme risk. And when we hit that time mark, when we were down in Baghdad, we got into firefights where other captains would come out with us and ride.

And I'd be walking around, my snipers would be walking around laughing, pointing, shooting. And they were like, you guys are just absolutely insane. But then as you get closer to coming home, you start almost like sports. You're playing like not to lose.

And I'd be walking around, my snipers would be walking around laughing, pointing, shooting. And they were like, you guys are just absolutely insane. But then as you get closer to coming home, you start almost like sports. You're playing like not to lose.

And so what's really interesting is you take the most casualties at the beginning of your deployment when you don't have a lot of context about what the enemy's doing, but also at the end when you're playing not to lose. It's actually in the middle when I get back.

And so what's really interesting is you take the most casualties at the beginning of your deployment when you don't have a lot of context about what the enemy's doing, but also at the end when you're playing not to lose. It's actually in the middle when I get back.

As I was about to come home, I would think about what I'd done in the middle of my deployment and my hands would shake because I was just, oh my God. So there's like these overarching learnings about are you going to be brave enough to put the team and your brothers before yourself? But also there's it's not even the same. There's these other contextual things that influence groups.

As I was about to come home, I would think about what I'd done in the middle of my deployment and my hands would shake because I was just, oh my God. So there's like these overarching learnings about are you going to be brave enough to put the team and your brothers before yourself? But also there's it's not even the same. There's these other contextual things that influence groups.

And I think as a leader, you have to understand those team dynamics, too, because the whole point of leadership is to be inversely correlated with the context. When the team's playing not to lose, you have to counter that with extreme aggression in terms of the mindset to offset because you know where the team's headed.

And I think as a leader, you have to understand those team dynamics, too, because the whole point of leadership is to be inversely correlated with the context. When the team's playing not to lose, you have to counter that with extreme aggression in terms of the mindset to offset because you know where the team's headed.

When they're overly sort of risk-taking, you need to try to mitigate risk and pull it back. But the other thing was, similar to entrepreneurship, we were given a novel problem set. And so I had a team, we had a mission, But we had never practiced for using signal intelligence and different techniques to basically be a SWAT team. That was new.

When they're overly sort of risk-taking, you need to try to mitigate risk and pull it back. But the other thing was, similar to entrepreneurship, we were given a novel problem set. And so I had a team, we had a mission, But we had never practiced for using signal intelligence and different techniques to basically be a SWAT team. That was new.

And so a lot of it was just the scientific method of having a certain way of doing things and then codifying learning. So when we would come back, we would say what worked really well that we should keep, what didn't work so well. And over time, that led to a lot of specialization and

And so a lot of it was just the scientific method of having a certain way of doing things and then codifying learning. So when we would come back, we would say what worked really well that we should keep, what didn't work so well. And over time, that led to a lot of specialization and